Crazy Dems
A Crazy Compilation of Crazy Media Attacks
NewsBusters has a great line up for their notable quotables:
- First Impulse: Let’s Blame Conservatives
Arizona Daily Star columnist/cartoonist David Fitzsimmons: “I must tell you as a columnist who has covered politics in this state, it was inevitable, from my perspective.” Anchor Martin Savidge: “Why do you say that?”
Fitzsimmons: “Because the right in Arizona, and I’m speaking very broadly, has been stoking the fires of a heated anger and rage successfully in this state….The politics of the state does tend to be far to the right. I would say even rabid right.”
— Exchange at about 2:30pm ET during CNN’s live coverage of the Giffords shooting, January 8. Fitzsimmons later conceded his remarks were “inappropriate.”
[….]
- The Tucson Shooting: Let’s Blame Talk Radio
“What’s been the role of talk radio in fueling the heated language?…People like Mark Levin, Michael Savage, for example who every time you listen to them are furious, furious at the Left with anger that just builds and builds in their voice, and by the time they go to commercial, they’re just in some rage, every night, with ugly talk. Ugly sounding talk. And it never changes. It never modulates…. They do see the other end of the field as evil, as awful. Not just disagreeable but evil. And they use that language, when they talk about the other side, isn’t that part of the problem? And my question is doesn’t that give the moral license to people who have crazy minds to start with?”
— MSNBC’s Chris Matthews on Hardball, January 11.
“It is facile and mistaken to attribute this particular madman’s act directly to Republicans or Tea Party members. But it is legitimate to hold Republicans and particularly their most virulent supporters in the media responsible for the gale of anger that has produced the vast majority of these threats, setting the nation on edge….That whirlwind has touched down most forcefully in Arizona, which Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik described after the shooting as the capital of ‘the anger, the hatred and the bigotry that goes on in this country.’”
— January 10 New York Times editorial, “Bloodshed and Invective in Arizona.”
vs.
“In the aftermath of this unforgivable attack, it will be important to avoid drawing prejudicial conclusions from the fact that Major Hasan is an American Muslim whose parents came from the Middle East. President Obama was right when he told Americans, ‘we don’t know all the answers yet’ and cautioned everyone against ‘jumping to conclusions.’”
— From a November 7, 2009 New York Times editorial after the shootings at Fort Hood, Texas.
Cohen Still Spouting Nazi Comparisons
For those who think WMDs was a lie, you should read my post on it.
Steve Cohen (D-TN) Calls Tea Party Persons Nazis (Again)
Steve Cohen (D-TN) has merely updated his repertoire on his attacks against the Tea Party and Republicans. Nine months ago, they were the Klan with better fashion sense; now they’re Nazis using the tactics of Josef Goebbels. One might think being the target of a nasty anti-semitic slur and compared to a Klansman himself (by a fellow Democrat in his home district) might have taught Cohen a lesson in civility before the New Tone became the new Ugg Boots on Capitol Hill, but alas, as readers can see for themselves, Cohen still suffers from his chronic case of cerebral-rectalitis.
Will Democrats rush to their podiums to condemn Cohen for demonizing the opposition?
More Proof That Democrats Do Not Know What is In the Constitution (Dem Rep John Lewis)
Yet another embarrassing detour into constitutional theory, progressive-style, via CNS. Serious question: Isn’t it high time for Pelosi to call a caucus meeting so that they can hammer out their talking points on this subject once and for all? The left frets endlessly about its poor “messaging” on ObamaCare, yet I can’t help feeling that not being able to answer a painfully basic question about its constitutionality — again and again and again — might, perhaps, be contributing to negative public perceptions. The obvious answer when this issue is raised is, of course, “the Commerce Clause.” The Commerce Clause, according to the left and generations of Supreme Court precedent, entitles Congress to do virtually anything it wants in regulating the economy. If you can dream it, the Commerce Clause can do it! That’s what a government of “limited powers” is all about, right? And yet, behold the parade of dispiritingly horrible answers offered by top Democrats when confronted about it. Phil Hare and Pelosi herself shrugged off the issue of constitutionality as being almost beneath them; Daniel Akaka flatly admitted he didn’t know of any constitutional basis; Sheila Jackson Lee chimed in yesterday with an incoherent due process defense; and now here’s John Lewis not only bringing equal protection into it but citing the “pursuit of happiness” clause in the Constitution’s preamble. Which, er, doesn’t exist: As CNS notes, that’s a phrase from the Declaration of Independence. What Lewis means, I assume, is the “general welfare” clause of the preamble, which is a lame argument insofar as the preamble doesn’t have the force of law but at least has the virtue of citing a provision that’s actually in the Constitution.
Crosshairs Not Acceptable Anymore-Controlling Language the PC Way (CNN’s John King Apologizes)~Rush Limbaugh Added
(For fuller context, see EyeBlast)
Using CNN’s line of thought, Target stores have been inciting hatred since 1962! This reminds me of a few books on the PC lifestyle the Left loves to try and inflict on us all. A fun read on this topic was written by Michael Smerconish entitled Muzzled. In his opening sentences of his first paragraph he says this:
MUZZLED. In a word, it’s what we’ve become. Words and actions in this country have become MUZZLED by those among us in favor of political correctness who would sacrifice the rugged individualism that has been the hallmark of our nation. It’s a trend that has been building for a while but is now totally out of control.
And in the final sentences Smerconish writes a fictitious letter to his son. But with all this talk… is it not headed this way? I mean, if “crosshairs” can be scrubbed from TV, how long before the actual crosshairs? Which is why putting Constitutional judges on the Supreme Court is key. Here is that fictional ending:
You know your dad; I was never comfortable when they passed the mandatory handgun hand-in.
Maybe I should have seen it coming.
I mean, when Congress finally declared the NRA to be a hate group, the handwriting was on the wall.
But they really took the gun outlawing too far. I mean, when the citizen ban was expanded to police, that was just too much for me.
The Powers That Be mentions this and throws in the pic:
At Hot Air, Allahpundit wonders: How did America survive through all the years CNN aired this program
This weird 1984/Animal Farm/Fahrenheit 451/Brave New World way of thinking that infects the left is crazy! However, since the Democratic Party is leaning left these days, there is some history people should know about maybe why it is that the Left loves to control language in a Politically Correct fashion. Here is a decent 3-part YouTube presentation of the ideas behind this language control:
Democrat-Sheila Jackson Lee-5th Amendment Covers Obama Care as Well As 14th
Crazy Dems invent, insert, re-write the Constitution. The American Spectator has this (HotAir h/t):
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, a Democrat from Texas, said on Tuesday afternoon that repealing the national health care law would violate the Constitution.
Arguing that the Commerce Clause provides the constitutional basis for ObamaCare, Jackson Lee said repealing the law by passing Republicans’ H.R. 2 violates both the Fifth Amendment’s right to due process and the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection clause….
Some Eric Fuller News-Arrested For Threatining Life of Tea Partier (DemocracyNow [The Socialist Network] TV Interview Included)
The Left is Sick!
Death Threats Towards Palin at Unprecedented Levels-Left To Blame for Mood of Nation?
HotAir is reporting an aid saying that the death threats to Palin have increased dramatically:
An aide close to Sarah Palin says death threats and security threats have increased to an unprecedented level since the shooting in Arizona, and the former Alaska governor’s team has been talking to security professionals.
Since the shooting in Tucson, Palin has taken much heat for her “crosshairs” map that targeted 20 congressional Democrats in the 2010 mid-term election, including that of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who was the main target of Saturday’s attack.
Friends say Palin, a possible 2012 contender, was galled as suggestions of her role in the tragedy have swirled.
Is the Left responsible for this spike in hatred? What is — God forbid — Sarah Palin is hurt? Do the pundits, personalities, etc., have any responsibility for this — using their own thinking displayed with connecting Palin to this tragedy? Here is a conversation from FB I had on this topic. I posted the following statement with a link to a post I had:
If the Arizona shooter was influenced by national hatred, which rhetorical side do you think he was influenced by: [quote from story] As we all know, the Tea Party movement is teeming with Bush-hating, 9/11 truther, antiwar, Christian-hating, “Left-wing pothead” zealots
RPT Jared Loughner Opposed the Iraq and Afghanistan~Of Course (LR & Townhall.com h/t)
Here is the first comment I agreed with, so here is the second comment and this kicks off the discussion in earnest. (Keep in mind all people that comment mean no malice and are friends, albeit from the other side of the political — and religious — spectrum) Misspellings included:
sorry, but liberals don’t affiliate themselves with supremacist orginizations like American Reniassance as Jared did – all the “news” agencies that “report” Jared a leftist are extreme conservative sites, while the actual newsworthy sites (AP, even Fox) paint him as unstable with ties to a racist orginization. Being back in college for Biotech we are constantly reminded to vet internet info …But I agree with Reagan, time to STOP blaming society and blame the individual. You gotta admit, when an extremist Right winger goes off the deep end, bombs and guns are involved Federal Agents are killed, Abortion Dr’s are perforated, Federal Buildings blown up, offices and people attacked- when a liberal goes off the deep end, they move to the forest and build a teepee to live in.
Me:
Yes, he was crazy, bottom line. But if he was influenced by something, it was by people who
a) hated Bush
b) 9/11 truther
Democrats in America are evenly divided on the question of whether George W. Bush knew about the 9/11 terrorist attacks in advance. Thirty-five percent (35%) of Democrats believe he did know, 39% say he did not know, and 26% are not sure. Republicans reject that view and, by a 7-to-1 margin, say the President did not know in advance about the attacks. Among those not affiliated with either major party, 18% believe the President knew and 57% take the opposite view.
c) antiwar
d) hated Christians
e) was an atheist
f) Left-wing pothead
[added later]
g) fixated with Giffords 3-years ago ~ before Obama, Health-Care, and the like
h) didn’t listen to radio
i) didn’t watch TV
His affiliation with American Reniassance was a “Like” on FaceBook. If I, for instance, went on a killing spree the press would have a field day with all the orgs I “liked” on my FB. Unfortunately, most of the vitriol is on the left:https://religiopoliticaltalk.com/2011/01/tony-blankley-schools-ed-schultz-and-bill-press/
Michael Moore hates the following as his movies record:
- Anti-health care system= Sicko
- Anti-Capitalism= Capitalism, a Love Story
- IRS cronyism with businesses= Capitalism, a Love Story
- Anti-Bush= Fahrenheit 9/11
- Blames Big Corporations for job issues= The Big One
The IRS plane guy believed this;
- Hates George W. Bush and his “cronies”
- Hates Big Pharma
- Hates Big Insurance
- Hates GM executives
- Hates organized religion
- Refers favorably to communism
- And in his last words before dying, denigrates capitalism.
I have more bios here:http://religiopoliticaltalk.blogspot.com/search/label/Crazed%20Gunmen%20Bios
Also see Democrat call Bush a Nazi: http://religiopoliticaltalk.blogspot.com/2007/07/democrat-calls-bush-hitler-says-behind.html
The commentator that I first agreed with hops in:
you are ridiculous… and stubborn….and obviously care more about pointing fingers and making yourself feel better, than actually taking a step back and looking at what political rhetoric in this country is coming to. in stead of spurring healthy debate, politicos (on both sides) obsession with the mass media outlets, and their attempts to cater to every fringe constituent they can, has created a media monster that has more to do with “I know you are but what am I” and less to do with developing policies and legislature that reflect the peoples’ best interests…. good thing you cant own guns or I else I would be waiting for the day you finally cant take anymore from your leftist friends and the liberal media and make a list and start picking off libs…..don’t get any ideas.
My response:
My point is that the only people making rhetorical attacks — to which my blog (for those not aware of it: https://religiopoliticaltalk.com/) is responding to — are from the left. Please, tell me whom on the right that are equal to Senators and MSNBC pundits are making rhetorical claims about Sarah Palin being behind this (via crosshairs) or calling Tea Partiers Nazi’s and fomenting the national mood that makes someone shoot people. YES HE WAS A NUT… but if Chris Matthews, Rachel Maddow, Keith Olbermann, Andrea Mitchell, Sheriff Dupnik, Ed Schultz, E. Steven Collins, Michael Smerconish, Woopi Goldberg, Joy Behar, Mark Shields, Bill Maher, Matt Bai, Democrat Rep. Raul Grijalva, Democrat Rep. Bill Pascrell, Democrat Rep. James Clyburn, Democrat Sen. Bob Kerrey, ETC, ETC
Of course I cannot forget Socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (who caucuses with the Democrats) fund raising letter just a couple of days after the shooting:
Given the recent tragedy in Arizona, as well as the start of the new Congress, I wanted to take this opportunity to share a few words with political friends in Vermont and throughout the country. I also want to thank the very many supporters who have begun contributing online to my 2012 reelection campaign at www.bernie.org. There is no question but that the Republican Party, big money corporate interests and right-wing organizations will vigorously oppose me. Your financial support now and in the future is much appreciated. What should be understood is that the violence, and threats of violence against Democrats in Arizona, was not limited to Gabrielle Giffords. Raul Grijalva, an old friend of mine and one of the most progressive members in the House, was forced to close his district office this summer when someone shot a bullet through his office window. Another Democratic elected official in Arizona, recently defeated Congressman Harry Mitchell, suspended town meetings in his district because of the threatening phone calls that he received (Mitchell was also in the cross-hairs on the Palin map). And Judge John Roll, who was shot to death at the Giffords event, had received numerous threatening calls and death threats in 2009.In light of all of this violence – both actual and threatened – is Arizona a state in which people who are not Republicans are able to participate freely and fully in the democratic process? Have right-wing reactionaries, through threats and acts of violence, intimidated people with different points of view from expressing their political positions?
Remember this by all the same people and then some?
….On November 5, 2009, Maj. Nidal Hasan opened fire at a troop readiness center in Ft. Hood, Texas, killing 13 people. Within hours of the killings, the world knew that Hasan reportedly shouted “Allahu Akbar!” before he began shooting, visited websites associated with Islamist violence, wrote Internet postings justifying Muslim suicide bombings, considered U.S. forces his enemy, opposed American involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan as wars on Islam, and told a neighbor shortly before the shootings that he was going “to do good work for God.” There was ample evidence, in other words, that the Ft. Hood attack was an act of Islamist violence.
Nevertheless, public officials, journalists, and commentators were quick to caution that the public should not “jump to conclusions” about Hasan’s motive. CNN, in particular, became a forum for repeated warnings that the subject should be discussed with particular care.
“The important thing is for everyone not to jump to conclusions,” said retired Gen. Wesley Clark on CNN the night of the shootings.
“We cannot jump to conclusions,” said CNN’s Jane Velez-Mitchell that same evening. “We have to make sure that we do not jump to any conclusions whatsoever.”
“I’m on Pentagon chat room,” said former CIA operative Robert Baer on CNN, also the night of the shooting. “Right now, there’s messages going back and forth, saying do not jump to the conclusion this had anything to do with Islam.”
The next day, President Obama underscored the rapidly-forming conventional wisdom when he told the country, “I would caution against jumping to conclusions until we have all the facts.” In the days that followed, CNN jouralists and guests repeatedly echoed the president’s remarks.
“We can’t jump to conclusions,” Army Gen. George Casey said on CNN November 8. The next day, political analyst Mark Halperin urged a “transparent” investigation into the shootings “so the American people don’t jump to conclusions.” And when Republican Rep. Pete Hoekstra, then the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, suggested that the Ft. Hood attack was terrorism, CNN’s John Roberts was quick to intervene. “Now, President Obama has asked people to be very cautious here and to not jump to conclusions,” Roberts said to Hoekstra. “By saying that you believe this is an act of terror, are you jumping to a conclusion?
Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/2011/01/journalists-urged-caution-after-ft-hood-now-race-blame-palin-afte#ixzz1AmqNr4AC
My point is that most of the rhetoric I have seen (and still is coming from the Left) are from liberal pundits. And this card often used by them:
The highest-ranking Democrat in America, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, described the Senate bill making English the national language of the American people as “racist.” And the New York Times editorial page labeled the bill “xenophobic.”
Welcome to the thoughtless world of contemporary liberalism. Beginning in the 1960s, liberalism, once the home of many deep thinkers, began to substitute feeling for thought and descended into superficiality.
One-word put-downs of opponents’ ideas and motives were substituted for thoughtful rebuttal. Though liberals regard themselves as intellectual — their views, after all, are those of nearly all university professors — liberal thought has almost died. Instead of feeling the need to thoughtfully consider an idea, most liberal minds today work on automatic. One-word reactions to most issues are the liberal norm.
This is easy to demonstrate.
Here is a list of terms liberals apply to virtually every idea or action with which they differ:
- Racist
- Sexist
- Homophobic
- Islamophobic
- Imperialist
- Bigoted
- Intolerant
And here is the list of one-word descriptions of what liberals are for:
- Peace
- Fairness
- Tolerance
- The poor
- The disenfranchised
- The environment
These two lists serve contemporary liberals in at least three ways.
This psychological hatred from the Left towards Bush and now Sarah Palin is what is making the mood of the nation bitter. And it may have bad consequences that I am sure the Left will accept as warranted — ate least some.
Nobel Prize Winning NYTs Journalist-Paul Krugmans Language Gap
This is a great story from NewsBusters. It shows how Nobel Prize winner can lie to his readers, forgetting any semblance of real journalism. You know, I think journalism needs a good dose of what hermeneutics teachers. In fact, may I say this generation of graduates have been taught how not to think.
Michele Bachmann was given the Krugman treatment in a column on Monday. Krugman had this to say:
And it’s the saturation of our political discourse — and especially our airwaves — with eliminationist rhetoric that lies behind the rising tide of violence.
Where’s that toxic rhetoric coming from? Let’s not make a false pretense of balance: it’s coming, overwhelmingly, from the right. It’s hard to imagine a Democratic member of Congress urging constituents to be “armed and dangerous” without being ostracized; but Representative Michele Bachmann, who did just that, is a rising star in the G.O.P.
Krugman defined “eliminationist rhetoric” in this context as “suggestions that those on the other side of a debate must be removed from that debate by whatever means necessary.” Bachmann’s statement was the only example he provided.
But true to form, Krugman quoted Bachmann out of context, and completely turned around the meaning of her statement in the process. What did she actually say? Here’s PowerLine’s John Hinderaker:
As it happens, I–unlike Krugman–know all about Michele’s “armed and dangerous” quote, because she said it in an interview with Brian Ward and me, on our radio show. It was on March 21, 2009. The subject was the Obama administration’s cap and trade proposal. Michele organized a couple of informational meetings in her district with an expert on global warming and cap and trade, and she came on our show to promote those meetings. She wanted her constituents to be armed with information on cap and trade so that they would understand how unnecessary, and how damaging to our economy, the Obama administration’s proposal was. That would make them dangerous to the administration’s left-wing plans…
For the record, here is what Michele said: “I’m going to have materials for people when they leave. I want people armed and dangerous on this issue of the energy tax, because we need to fight back.” Yes, that’s right: she wanted Minnesotans to be armed with “materials”–facts and arguments–not guns. If this is the best example of “eliminationist rhetoric” that the far left can come up with, you can see how absurdly weak the claims of Krugman and his fellow haters are.
Bachmann wanted her constituents to be engaged and knowledgable in the political process. This, apparently, was the only example Krugman could come up with, and it doesn’t actually support his point.
I think seminary grads have a LOT to offer these political “mavens” (really, red herrings). For instance, what does the typical Bible student learn about how to interpret properly. Here is some of a larger paper I wrote a while ago entitled, “Biblical Inerrancy Defined,” on this topic:
The internal test utilizes one Aristotle’s dictums from his Poetics. He said,
They [the critics] start with some improbable presumption; and having so decreed it themselves, proceed to draw inferences, and censure the poet as though he had actually said whatever they happen to believe, if his statement conflicts with their notion of things…. Whenever a word seems to imply some contradiction, it is necessary to reflect how many ways there may be of understanding it in the passage in question…. So it is probably the mistake of the critics that has given rise to the Problem…. See whether he [the author] means the same thing, in the same relation, and in the same sense, before admitting that he has contradicted something he has said himself or what a man of sound sense assumes as true.
LANGUAGE GAP
…Consider how confused a foreigner must be when he reads in a daily newspaper: “The prospectors made a strike yesterday up in the mountains.” “The union went on strike this morning.” “The batter made his third strike and was called out by the umpire.” “Strike up with the Star Spangled Banner.” “The fisherman got a good strike in the middle of the lake.” Presumably each of these completely different uses of the same word go back to the parent and have the same etymology.[1] But complete confusion may result from misunderstanding how the speaker meant the word to be used…. We must engage in careful exegesis in order to find out what he meant in light of contemporary conditions and usage.
[….]
[….]
Eight Rules of Interpretation ~ …the Eight Rules of Interpretation used by legal experts for more than 2500 years.
1) Rule of Definition: Define the term or words being considered and then adhere to the defined meanings.
2) Rule of Usage: Don’t add meaning to established words and terms. What was the common usage in the cultural and time period. When the passage was written?
3) Rule of Context: Avoid using words out of context. Context must define terms and how words are used.
4) Rule of Historical background: Don’t separate interpretation and historical investigation.
5) Rule of Logic: Be certain that words as interpreted agree with the overall premise.
6) Rule of Precedent: Use the known and commonly accepted meanings of words, not obscure meanings for which there is no precedent.
7) Rule of Unity: Even though many documents may be used there must be a general unity among them.
8) Rule of Inference: Base conclusions on what is already known and proven or can be reasonably implied from all known facts.
- [1] Etymology: “the study of the origins of words or parts of words and how they have arrived at their current form and meaning” (Encarta Dictionary).
Paul Krugman could use a fat dose of what journalism SHOULD BE, maybe by going to a seminary.